"I am very happy about the direction in which the Mac OS X GUI is going, although sadly many Mac users aren't interested in (or don't know about) the "lower levels" of the Macintosh Operating System. Have you ever wondered why the Terminal greets you with the words "Welcome to Darwin"? Why do BSD and Mac OS share certain bits of code? Why does Wikipedia describe Mac OS X as a graphical operating system? Today we're going to take a look at the underlying open source technology which powers your fancy Leopard OS - the hidden core set of components, named Darwin."

Could have been??? more users use BSD (Darwin, FBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD...) on their desktop than any other open source OS.

I've always chuckled at the way many BSD advocates try and portray the disadvantage of the BSD license in producing code and software that is used to provide others like Apple with a free ride to produce totally different and incompatible systems. "Oh well" the BSD people say. "It makes us the most used desktop system around!"

Keep thinking the above if it gives you some pleasure, and some comfort.

"Could have been??? more users use BSD (Darwin, FBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD...) on their desktop than any other open source OS.

I've always chuckled at the way many BSD advocates try and portray the disadvantage of the BSD license in producing code and software that is used to provide others like Apple with a free ride to produce totally different and incompatible systems. "Oh well" the BSD people say. "It makes us the most used desktop system around!"

Keep thinking the above if it gives you some pleasure, and some comfort. "

Surely that depends on what your aims are?

If your aim is to write code and know that millions of people use it because your license is so liberal, and you get satisfaction from knowing that (evidently lots of people do, after all), then who's been disadvantaged?

If your aim is to write code with the intention that nobody can fork it in a way which prevents others from doing the same thing (as per the GPL and similar licenses), then obviously the BSD situation isn't going to be amenable to you.

Neither is inherently right or wrong, it's just that different people value different things.

(As an example: I build websites for clients for a living; I know that thousands of people use my code every day, and to me that's what makes the job worth doing; they don't even know that I'm responsible for it (unless something goes wrong and I have to talk to them!). Other folk don't really get anything from that scenario, and would much rather, say, build a site for themselves, and enjoy the fact that people know who built and runs it).

That's not even funny anymore because almost nobody get to use BSD code as is , they get to use BSD based code. The difference is that the BSD rights and privilege are illegally removed and that the funding and future development goes into making proprietary drivers , software and OS that are cutting in directly with BSD. The BSD are a laughing ridiculous joke as soon as you compare it to it's commercial derivative : SUN , Apple , Microsoft.

Who is disadvantaged you ask again ? the BSD themself , they are removing themself from being competitive and are dependent on others' good will and contributions at all and every level.

How come the BSD can't be on par in the fundings and contribution of code and number of user's vs project that are all 4 decade ( that's 40 years ) yougner if not less then they are themself. Why do they need the Hardware contribution of other OS distributors ? Why don't they have major one themself ?

If the lies your telling where reality and truth , then there would be no need for GNU/Linux at all , there would be no Apple as it would be made obsolete by BSD itself due to it's rate of development and it's quality of code and accepted prevelance in all aspect of computer OS.

No , BSD is inherently and completely wrong , if it where right then the majority of people who created or particpated in it in the past would still be associated with it, proud to say so too , and most people would still work at it as it is most people who have really worked on BSD and are excellent and good at what they do are doing something else.

BSD is chaos , everything goes , the problem with chaos and why it appeals to kids and people like you in theory is it's a good thing if your as blind as you are and only look at the good side witch is what people like you only do and talk about. Once you look at it's bad side it completely negate it's good side.

Sure it's fun to say millions of people use BSD code , the reality is the million use closed derivative and the reality is that it's not really fun to have ZERO support be it from BSD themself , its commercial proprietary derivative or anyone else for BSD.

BSD is fun in theory , in reality most people will work on other OS or at something else. Because there is no real demand for BSD job or any future for it.

Darwin is what BSD could have been , if BSD ad not been inherently and completely wrong.

The proof is in your example you work at building website instead of at building BSD and being paid to do so.